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[DoktaYut]

Is it really supposed to provide you with legendary dwarves in a matter of a few months, or did I just have a perfect storm of conditions? Because I'm playing with a mod (Direforged) which not only gives me the race I'm playing with (Shyhak, which are insectoid, bit fragile, four-armed, tall as a human) but also gives goblins different available pops, mostly extra kinds of trolls to fight every time I send them there. But I've been sending a squad of nine to a dark fortress four days away as constantly as possible, not even letting them have much time to arrive, and in a matter of one or two seasons they're legendary in weapon skills, shield and armor use.

Does this happen with dwarves, if you equip them decently, train them to something a bit past dabbling and then constantly send them to slaughter things out there (pillage option, with razing they don't back down and get captured)? Because on one hand, it seems a bit broken, but on the other hand it does seem appropriate that they'd become really good at fighting if they had to pillage a fortress several times a month.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

Sounds like as good place to do some !!Science!!. I'll make this the aim of my next fortress. 
10 random dwarves drafted to train vs 10 sent to pillage everything.

[Urist McVoyager]

Not sure how it breaks down in melee, but we know in archery that shooting living things gives twice the experience of target shooting. It would not be surprising if swinging a sword in anger/avoiding being killed by a sword swung in anger also trains twice as fast as sparring.

[Kars]

Training by live combat is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than training by sparring, hence why in adventure mode you can reach legendary in 3 weapon skills in the time it'd take a dwarf to go from dabbling to novice or adequate in fort during training. Trade-off being, of course, that it's much riskier, cause live opponents have an annoying tendency to want to not die

[DoktaYut]

True enough, live training is rather obscenely effective compared to combat drills, teaching or even sparring. I suppose the question comes partly because we don't quite get a feeling for how much fighting does go on in these battles other than the numbers, you never really know if those nine goblins that died in the clash actually put up a fight or just got bisected one after the other, or if that one named goblin was a strong combatant that matched your soldier blow by blow or was merely a footnote. Or the time, either, the travel times seem to be the only relevant times, with the actual pillaging happening in a relative instant (I think. I have a vague feeling sacking and burning sites takes longer, enough to be observed, from the times I've tried it).

Goblins also seem to suck at tactics, because recruits that were dabbling tacticians outsmarted them every time. That might also have something to do with it, might let the squad stick around longer murdering things and thus get more experience.

On a sidenote, I'd like to express appreciation for the fact the pillagers are smart enough to steal clothes that actually fit; not one case of -small troll fur glove- even with the extra size difference. In retrospective it seems a bit silly but I honestly thought that could have been a problem.

[Sanctume]

Zombie (1) attacks Urist in the upper body, but misses. =   Urist gains 0 Armor User exp.
Zombie (1) attacks Urist in the upper body, bruising. =   Urist gains 6/500 exp in Armor User (skill 0).

It seems best live training condition is fighting one small undead creatures in a reanimating biome within a closed room (7x7) with 10 dwarves vs 1 zombie.  Retractable bridge with cage trap for recapture of hard foes.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

Still spinning up a decent world (is worldgen slower nowadays?), but it seems that sneaking around a place improves ambusher skill.  A couple of raids should get most dwarves up to novice.

[gordy]

After a dozen sneaky raids, my starting seven are now expert ambushers.